From its noir origins to its newfound elegance, Manly Pacific’s transformation mirrors a broader renaissance sweeping through Sydney’s northern beaches.
Brisbane property developer Adam Flaskas looks out across Sydney Harbour from his new Felons bar, like he kinda just can’t believe it.
“I sound like a broken record with my kids, always saying that old 1940s slogan: ‘Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care.’ But it’s true. It’s how I feel when I’m here.”
And the Brisbanite is spending 80% of his time there. “Everyone’s so happy here in Manly because it’s so beautiful. The locals are humble, and it’s just been a really good energy.”
Who would have thought a confirmed Queenslander would find any Sydneysider who passed muster. Let alone a whole suburb’s worth.
The Brisbane property developer’s Artemus Group bought the leasehold on Sydney’s Manly Wharf for $80 million in 2023, putting Flaskas in control of the Sydney icon.
The guy who created Brisbane’s game-changing Howard Smith Wharves precinct has bought a house here as he gears up for some big announcements in overhauling the iconic wharf. He’s not saying exactly what as we watch the sunset over the water, suffice to say he’s trying to find 600 to 700 new staff.
The new energy at the wharf is mirrored up the road at the Manly Pacific Hotel where he had previously been staying. The beachfront landmark has evolved into a contemporary sanctuary for travellers and locals alike.
Its Cibaria restaurant has just been hatted. Its rooftop pool looks straight over the beach where Flaskas and his son often surf.
The Manly Pacific Hotel’s director of VIP services Nicola Mitchell says that visitors to Sydney have got it all wrong. “They stay in the city and catch the ferry to Manly for the day. They should be staying here and catching the ferry to the city.”
She’s showing us the VIP room that’s housed one of the Spice Girls and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, [though not Flaskas] standing on the terrace balcony big enough for a hit of pickleball. As a Sydneysider born and bred, I realise I have never stayed in Manly for more than a few hours.
It is a sunny public holiday and South Steyne Beach is heaving with both locals and visitors fresh off the ferry. When she’d opened the door, there was a pause as the room spoke for itself – spacious, sunlit, and with a dangerously well-stocked wine fridge discreetly tucked into the cabinetry.
She gestures out toward the beach – a slow-moving postcard with surfers going left and right across the tableau. “Manly’s unique,” she says. “You’ve got the ferry, you’ve got the history — North Head, the quarantine station — and then the beach, the restaurants, the bars, the lobster …”
She shows us up to the heated rooftop pool and books us in for an infrared sauna. A slab of empty rooftop is earmarked for more such wellness wonders. “Gone are the days where you come to a hotel and just stay the night. We are leaning into the hotel becoming a ‘precinct’ with dining, wellness and activities onsite.”
Manly has been at the forefront of Australian beach culture since, on October 2, 1902, the editor of the local newspaper, William Gocher, defied a ban on daylight bathing to stride down to the beach in neck-to-knee cossies for a midday swim. It led to the ban being lifted [though after Newcastle and Randwick councils got in first.]
Seventy four years later, rugby league great, commentator and Manly legend Rex Mossop made news by performing a citizen’s arrest on a nude bather at Reef Beach.
The Manly Pacific was built in 1983 for $16 million by prominent local citizen Andrew Kalajzich. It became infamous just three years later when Kalajzich hired a hitman to murder his wife, Megan, as she slept beside him in their home in nearby Fairlight. Kalajzich served 25 years for the crime.
Nearly 40 years on, the hotel he built has moved beyond its noir origins to become part of the peninsula’s fabric — a landmark built low enough to not cast shade on the beach.
It is now owned by the Arkadia group which is owned jointly by the Laundy family, the largest private pub owners in Australia, and the Karedis family – think Theo Karedis of Theo’s Liquor fame.
And while Sydney’s super-wealthy have tended to keep to the other side of the harbour, or to the far northern end of the “Insular Peninsula”, Flaskas isn’t the only one moving in. Employment Hero founder Ben Thompson now lives – and works from home – just around the corner. His favourite restaurant used to be Sake at Manly Wharf before it closed down after Flaskas took over.
AirTrunk’s billionaire founder Robin Khuda, based in Mosman, has been quietly redeveloping Manly properties through his side venture Ondas, after paying $18.2 million for a beachfront block in 2020.
You can’t help thinking there’s a subtle shift underway — a gravitational pull toward this salt-encrusted enclave.
Dinner that night is at the bustling Cibaria, the Manly Pacific’s new Italian restaurant which has just won a hat at the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Awards. It is thrumming with life and chockas even on a Monday night. We start with scallops, brightened with lemon oil, finger lime, chervil, and ocean trout roe and it just keeps getting better through the wagyu bresaola and a perfectly crisp 900 gram Murray cod.
Down at Manly Kayak Centre next morning, owner Craig Moulds is helping visitors into bright orange kayaks. “Any chance we’ll see a penguin?” we ask hopefully. Moulds frowns, “You want the truth? You’ve got zero chance,” he says.
“With foxes, cats and seals — the penguins are getting hard to see. They’re in hiding. The pair that used to be under the jetty are gone. You’ve got more chance of seeing dolphins and whales.” Not wanting to appear ungrateful, we’d had a specky tail-slapping whale show the afternoon before.
He pushes us off the pontoon into the glimmering harbour, past the “look out for penguins” signs. The next hour is a delight of nature and real estate porn, gazing into the backyards of the other 1%, but no penguin burrows.
It’s while enjoying a sunset beer at Felons that we bump into Flaskas. Owing to its close connection of harbour to beach, Manly has a rare quality on the east coast – the ability to offer waves and a sunset over the water.
“Manly people always know which way the wind’s blowing,” says Flaskas. “Because there’s always somewhere perfect to go. If it’s coming from the northeast, you go to the Harbour, if it’s from the south you go to Shelly Beach. There’s all these hidden coves.”
The sun sinks low behind the ferry wharf, and the scene feels almost too perfect. And the meal at Felons seems a little too sensational for a pub meal. I’d had the coral trout curry and my plus-one went for the line-caught coral trout with tomato, crazy water, garlic, parsley, lemon.
I hadn’t eaten chips for years but they had me at “tallow-fried”. Then I read that Flaskas had wooed three ex Rockpool chefs to come on board and I realised he’d sensed which way the wind was blowing too. And he’s got one thing in his favour when it comes to attracting workers to the notoriously hard-to-find staff locale.
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